Clark Memorandum: Spring/Summer 1987 J
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Brigham Young University Law School BYU Law Digital Commons The lC ark Memorandum Law School Archives Spring 1987 Clark Memorandum: Spring/Summer 1987 J. Reuben Clark Law School J. Reuben Clark Law Society Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/clarkmemorandum Part of the Courts Commons, Family Law Commons, International Law Commons, and the Juvenile Law Commons Recommended Citation J. Reuben Clark Law School and J. Reuben Clark Law Society, "Clark Memorandum: Spring/Summer 1987" (1987). The Clark Memorandum. 5. https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/clarkmemorandum/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School Archives at BYU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The lC ark Memorandum by an authorized administrator of BYU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONTENTS BiuccC Hafen Going Dutch DCOIl Two JRCLS Alumni working at the Iran-U S Claims Tribunal in The Hague 2 Kira P. Davis Claude E Zohcll Editor Abandoning Children to Their- “Rights” Charles D Cianncy Reducing the discretion of authority figures can deprive children of affirmative I’rodcic tionlCopy Editor support and guidance 12 Dean Bruce C Hafen Linda A Sullivan Ai I Dire<IOI Mernorarida 17 lohn Snyder Photofir irpher Update Faculty Notes 27 David P Brooks Class Notes 31 A sso( iiite Edirot Letters 36 Kick Bickmore A ssisfiint Copy Edifoi Sp~ingiSummer1987 The CIiirk Meinoreindurn is published by the J Reuben Clatk Law School of Brigham Young University and the J Reuben Clark Law Society The articles do not necessaiily reflect the opinions of these organizations GOING DUTCH .. .. HE URAF'.3--[jp11 a'EU ?3'iATE!S Claims Tribunal was set up in the Netherlands in 1982 by the agreement between Iran and the U S as part of the bargain for the release of the American hostages from Iran. Jeff Robinson and Mark Davis are two J Reuben Clark Law School graduates (both from the class of '83) working in The Hague as legal assistants to Judge Charles N Brower, an American arbitrator on this tribunal Though I am married to Mark Davis, my view of Mark's and Jeff's work has been from the outside looking in, seeing things but not really comprehending them completely, like someone on the street watching people in a lighted rooni-I see the action but don't hear any sound Cases come, big cases that go .. down like rabbits in a snake’s throat, keeping Mark up building There was a cartoon of a tank with “taxi” in his office until nine, pulling his beard and scowling written on it tacked up on the wall of the guard’s CASES COME, into books I hear bits of it from him at home-some- room, and he teased about hiring out his services as times he summarizes cases for me, he has even come a “heavy guard ” BIG CASES up with ideas that way, telling it to me And We met John Crook, American Embassy represen- sometimes details about his separate life from me tative at the Tribunal, in the hall He congratulated us THAT GO DOWN over there leak out at parties Mark and Jeff look at on the birth of our baby a month ago and asked how each other knowingly and groan about Judge Christmas had been, and then we asked what he LIKE RABBITS Whatshisnanie, or they compare vacation or career thought of the recent press uproar He gave a tired sort plans I stand and smile politely most of the time, of chuckle and shook his head “This really is a IN A SNAKE’S holding my orange juice But in large part it remains nonstory They’re sure we’re trading money for a mystery to me bodies ” He mentioned that two major American THROAT So one day in late December I decided to try to get networks had carried the story last night “We just an insider’s view and write this article 1 scheduled an have to cool things down-the more we deny, the interview with Mark and Jeff, and they treated me more they’re sure ” very nearly like a real reporter We walked on again down the hall This building It was coincidentally an exciting time to be doing was once a hotel, but now the front foyer is redivided an interview at the Tribunal, newspapers and into boxy little guards’ roonis and an air-lockish front television networks in the States and in Europe were hall, with a metal detector and electronically locking carrying the story that the Tribunal had been playing a doors at both ends and a receptionists’ cubicle, and up major role in secret negotiations for the release of the broad stairs are copy centers and hearing roonis American hostages in Lebanon There were reporters and offices, and even a prayer room for the devotions in raincoats huddled under the eaves as we drove up in of the Iranian contingent It is clean and yuiet- our station wagon They looked searchingly at us a unassuming prints and photographs of ornate mosques few seconds but then decided we were nobody as we wait on the walls There are no surprises in the drove on through the electronically opened gate and architecture, no miniblinds, no dramatic lighting, it’s into the parking lot A big blue bus with “CD” license as if everything were waiting respectfully on the plates drove in just behind us and the reporters decision of the Tribunal, orderly and portioned out jumped down off the porch and crowded between English and Farsi, between God and Allah around “Corps Dil’lonicrtiqire-those There is nothing odd or unseemly or indecorous in the are the guys from the embassy,” Mark building4xcept perhaps the owl, who turns his head explained to me “They’re here for impossibly all the way around and winks at our girls negotiations right now ” He laughed when Mark brings them, or at anyone else gawking at “But what they just won’t believe,” and him through the window on the second floor, there in here he pointed to the press, “is that the his place next to the chimney outside, a few feet negotiations have got nothing to do with away hostages ” Jeff and Mark share an office on the third floor The Tribunal is as important looking overlooking a small yard filled with large trees as its neighbors-all embassies and Mark’s half of the office is not homey-his offices schools and mansions-each with its never are He has an Iranian calendar, a cutaway spread of grass and a front gate, but it has diagram of an oil rig, and a crayon drawing of a no sign, no title posted anywhere, only a mouse on the wall He never brings things from home flagpole in the front yard behind the to hang up, it seems He only puts there what Becky, fence-as if the building knew very well our six-year-old, insists he tape up immediately after how important it was, but wasn’t saying she’s drawn it on nights when he has to work aftei There is a circular drive, curving up to dinner again and she goes with him for the hot the front portico, and a fenced-off chocolate from the machine in the hall and the sticky entrance to a parking lot on the right side yellow memo pages peeled delightfully from a thick as you approach There is a little red pad in his drawer When he’s in the middle of a case, speaker box for drivers to shout into and explain their he leaves books and files sprawled spine-up across his business as they wait for the guard inside to open the desk, keeping the places he’ll want to read from as he gate and let them in There are still a few brave composes his report into the dictaphone geraniums left in flower boxes under windows on the Jeff‘s portion of the office seems somewhat inore ground and first floors orderly His wall has a postcard of the Matterhorn We parked in the back and came in through a back (which he recently climbed) as well as a Sierra Club door The New York Tinies had described the Tribunal calendar, a couple of weathered Xeroxed cartoons, as “heavily guarded” the day before, and Mark joked and a quote from Imam Khomeini “Aim all your with the very unintimidating guard in the front weapons at the U S. for our enemy is the U S ” He hallway as we went in to get his electronic badge also displays the art work of his four- and needed to open certain doors in “secured areas” of the two-year-olds 4 n the morning of my appoint- the after-Christmas news vacuum ” He and Jeff .. ment, I got out my memo pad exchanged glances and chuckled Jeff explained, and my pen and set up Mark’s “There really are negotiations going on here this week JEFF’S WALL. dictaphone to record the inter- between Iran and the U S about a payment of about view, feeling very $500 million to Iran, and there are in general some PlAS A POSY- reporterish-the only reporter superficial similarities of the work at the Tribunal who could get in past the with the recent arms deals and hostage negotiations CARD OF THE guards After a few minutes Current circumstances made it look like they might be Jeff came in, his raincoat related And that, coupled with some indecipherable MATT ERt-1OWN glistening and his hair wet He statements recently made by the Speaker of the shook out his umbrella and Iranian Parliament, Mr Rafsanjani, fueled AS WtLL AS A asked if we had seen all the speculation that there might be some sort of relation- hubbub downstairs and ship ” Jeff looked solemnly down at his hands and SIERRA CLUB commented that his mother-in-law had called from then up at the ceiling, seeming to peer down inside his the States the night before “She wanted to know if internal file and order the thing for me He spoke as if CALENDAR.